The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1229: Continental Philosophy and Its Origins - Pt. 9 - Hegel (1) w/ Thomas777

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

64 MinutesPG-13Thomas777 is a revisionist historian and a fiction writer.Thomas continues a series on the subject of Continental Philosophy, which focuses on history, culture, and society. In this episode Thomas begins his talk on Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.Thomas' SubstackRadio Free Chicago - T777 and J BurdenThomas777 MerchandiseThomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 1"Thomas' Book "Steelstorm Pt. 2"Thomas on TwitterThomas' CashApp - $7homas777Pete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Thomas, take us away, please. Yeah, thanks for. hosting me and I'm sorry for the hiatus so it's really sick as I think I shout it out on my T-Ramp I we're gonna deal with Hagle today and this is gonna be a two or three part treatment I realize I'm jumping around a bit but it's important to contextualize kind of philosophy I mean it's absolutely essential in a way it's not for some other subject areas that are less less kind of penumbric in their significance.

And subsequent to this Hegel treatment, I want to do a single episode or two on theology. I want to deal with Aquinas and Martin Luther and Calvin, because I think it's essential to address Aquinas within that same discussion. and if that seems like a conceptual bias because of my own, you know, confessional heritage, please let me know that like any of the subs, I mean, and I'll tweet how I break it down. But I thought about this because I certainly don't want anyone to feel offended or slighted,

and I think that's the sensible way to proceed. And Aquinas really would brought Aristotelianism to the West. I mean, obviously, learned men and especially churchmen, you know, obviously they were very, they weren't just competent in ancient languages. They were really much the stewards of the classical intellectual canon. It's not as if this was unknown, but this is what really sort of brought Aristotelian thought paradigines into what we think of as, European philosophy. But Hegel, when we're talking about political theory, we're talking about Hegel.

Just in absolute terms. And even if you're talking about Anglo-Saxon political philosophy as distinguished from the continental tradition, it's still in dialogue with Hegel. And that's key. Hagel in my, other than Hobbs, is it. Hagle is really the only

is really the only pure political theorist. Like, it's not to say that there's not a complex metaphysical understanding within Hagle. There absolutely is. It's not to say that he doesn't have a general theory of knowledge. Obviously, he does. Because anybody

who posits a theory of mind is dealing fundamentally with a metaphysical tradition that, you know, a metaphysical tradition that, originates with classical Athens but his subject matter is to explicate man's experience as a historical agent and Hegel's discussion of political ontology

it's fundamentally existential it's bound up with what man is and and it's bound up with mind in a way that's anextricable. And that's something that people misunderstand. He didn't have some idolatrous view of the state. He didn't view the state of some marvelous godly thing. And he didn't view the modern state as it existed, you know, really from the 15th century onward. He didn't view it as some perennial thing. His point was that the way that the state is structured, that's essential to understanding human praxis.

And it really is an externalization of processes of mind, you know, and there's an internal logic to statecraft that really can be understood in the Higalian terms as a providential. move on. That's what the source of it is. And to know that process is to understand reason, qua reason. And, you know, man being created in the image of God is the only organism capable of reason, you know, in higher rationality. And to perceive the historical process, of which the state is but one aspect is to perceive the mind of God. And to participate in statecraft is for man to reconcile this kind of inner psychological existence with the pragmatic reality of, you know, his own mortality and his desire to create enduring structures and to bring formal and symbolic things that he holds to be sacrosanct as well as practical things that are prosaic and related to mere survival,

the state of course of which these things are brought into corporeal reality. So that's what to think of it. He's not saying the state is wonderful or the state is something that we should revere at all. like what he's saying is that politics and political life of which the state is the subject matter you know is the instantation

of man's inner psychological experience which partakes of you know the divine spark in man whereby you know he is the literal progeny of

God okay so that's key And he also wasn't saying, again, when he talks about the state, he's not falling into this trap that a lot of neolists do and a lot of political science types in the 20th and 21st century are who are fixated on this kind of empirical modeling. But he's not saying that the state, as we know it, in his epoch, or even a thousand years prior, a thousand years subsequent, he's not saying that the peculiar configuration, of any even era of the state is somehow essential. There will always be some kind of state, even if it's a minimal state,

and the way, you know, the people like Murray Rothbard thought about it, you know, and even somebody like myself, you know, I'm very much a vanguardist in my disposition, and part of the reason why I'm committed to this current long-form manuscript I'm working on is because I'm constantly trying to, you know, assisting understanding that the Westphalian state is dead and what's going to succeed it is what's important. And it's not going to, it's not really going to resemble the 20th century state, managerial state, nor is it going to

resemble some sort of scale down version of that same conceptual paradigm and enterprise. You know, but that doesn't matter, even if we're talking about, you know, a structure of kind of whereby remedial justice is premised on self-help and where private actors are primarily responsible for what here to fore in the modern era has been the exclusive domain of public authority. We're still talking about state crap. We're still talking about a kind of state. A state is literally that. a present sense experience of deliberate political authority derived from, you know, an ongoing historical process that we can interpret through our faculty for both practical and higher reason.

You know, that's what he's talking about. Like state has been kind of a dirty word, especially in rhetorical capacities where people think that we're axiomatically talking about you know some kind of bloated bureaucratic you know 20th century type state that is that simply is endured

in the 21st century owing to a basic inflexibility of of the current system you know that and that that's something that people need to remedy you know but

so there's you know hey and finally before I get into like the meat of this you know again like any whether people think they are or not people find themselves both on the right and the left making

Hegelian arguments even if they don't realize it you know and that that's that's essential too I think because most people haven't read Hegel because it's

I mean to me I don't think it's particularly Arduous but if it's not your subject area or your research concentration, you know, it can, it can seem daunting to take a, to take on a study of Hagel. But you catch them in the corner of your eye. Distinctive, by design, they move you, even before you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range for Mentor, Leon, and Teramar. Now with flexible PCP finance and trade-in boosters of up to 2,000 euro.

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Trump on Dunebiog, Kush Farage. Hegel's thought is singularly and remarkably systemic, and that can't be overstated. His most impactful and significant works, I think, and arguably, are elements of the philosophy of right. I'm going to butcher this pronunciation. But the original title, the German title, is Gruninian de Philosophy Desrext. Elements of the philosophy of right. it's a tome of almost pure theory and

I'd say complimentary to elements of the philosophy of right elements of the philosophy of right where his essays on then contemporaneous government and processes of government that you know he viewed as an extricably related to the historical

process he wrote a series of essays on the German constitution when he was young that I consider essential reading. And then decades later, he wrote this very detailed treatment of the British reform bill, which changed everything. There's a number of reform bills in the UK.

I'm talking about the 1830 reform bill that, you know, expanded the voting franchise to basically, you know, every male citizen of majority who wasn't, you know, in a workhouse or a jail. But, you know, this was, uh, both of these, uh, despite being discreet and

temporally situated in peculiar in particular ways, both of these kind of bodies of essays, you know, they, they, they were singular and thorough examples of Higalian praxis. But again, conceptual modeling and praxis within the Hegelian paradigm, that's something of a distinction without categorical difference.

What I mean by that is Hegel's philosophy of right. He's not talking about right in the way that humanists talk about it or the way that somebody like John Locke talked about it. he's basically talking about, you know, natural law in like a quasi-thomist sense. But Hegel's philosophy of Wright and thus his philosophy of statecraft, it's really inseparable from his philosophical teaching and doctrine as a whole. And again, this is far more systemic and integrated than most other thinkers. you know and this this is clear really from the moment that somebody takes on a study of Higgelian thought there's echoes of this

and his stuff on the hard sciences as well as metaphysics in the science of logic and the encyclopedia of the philosophic sciences Higel talks about a universal history that is the product of eternal reason and

the cunning of reason and the revelation of this process you know whereby man can apprehend it and you know through his his own capacity for higher reason you know the dialectical process then becomes

this ongoing tautological developmental paradigm. You know, so in the final analysis, reason qua reason and history in the historical process, these are not separable. The unfolding of reason, the revelation of the mind of God, you know, it parallels the historical process because they're synonymous. You know, and in that way, the historical process is fundamentally rational. you know, and that's why misguided as, again, a lot of these contemporary political scientists may be in their methodology, that I'm not making an argument like some of the Von Misesians do, and that, you know, modeling is a fool's errand and impossible. Like, it absolutely is possible. It's just that the criteria and the inputs that are being.

employed aren't aren't aren't the correct ones that's somewhat tangential but that's important to understand um essential to Hegelian thought is the concept of syplishkite literally ethical life or ethical order the concept of Ziplichite, it reconciles the apparent polarity and irreconcilability between metaphysics and historiography and engaged praxis within political life. As Hale described it, it represents, quote, the life of the state within individuals. Or probably more properly, within individual minds. okay um attitudes of a moral or theological or self-consciously intellectual nature you know the common critique is that well political philosophy is a domain of academics and and and for a large part of the

history of the west you know what's the domain of of monastically cloistered you know churchmen, you know, and according to a lot of enlightenment theorists, this is incorrect because it's not pragmatic and it's somehow divorced from the reality of statecraft. Hagle suggested that's absolutely incorrect. Okay. This contemplative orientation, it doesn't at all rejects the proverbial sound and fury of political reality, war and peace, or the struggle of the classes, or anything else, like whatever your chosen emphasis of subject matter, you know,

conceptual political life and the praxis of the political are synonymous in Hagealian thought. It is through the state, and again, we're not talking about the state as if it's some object of reverence or anything and of itself. This is value neutral. Okay, but it is through the state, whatever configuration the state takes in any given epoch that the individual man

you know um gains a true reality as his conceptual existence comes to full flourishing and he partakes of that universal history and the cunning of reason which is the mind of god at work in man's affairs, you know, and through this process, this is how the state, you know, comes to devise laws and the sovereign actor being the only agent that can implement universally binding strictures through instituting laws. you know, man in his psychological cloister of inner life, such that he experiences that

participates in this universal historical process. You know, even if he's only so situated as an observer who can perceive what is underway. Okay. And finally, a state that's at all legitimate

and this is key and I'm always making the point that Hegel is axiomatically a right-wing thinker and will get deeper into what I mean by that as we go on but at the end of the day the only state that is legitimate the only state that

partakes of this aforementioned process and thus reflects you know higher rationality and practical reason is based on morality because morality itself is derivative from reason and morality seeking universality and the flourishing through universality and absolute application this can only

be realized and actualized by being incarnated in institutions and manners um manners and morals are one way to understand Ziplikshite Zitlichkite. In other words, the life of the state is really the life of the culture, constituted of individuals, and their devotion to a discrete way of life bound up with manners and morals, which themselves derive from a historical mode of existence. okay and it's through this is this is the tautology too of racial and cultural posterity you know the state derives from this psychological existence of man with and it gives him a training and an education and habituates him to the manners and morals of his culture or his race And these things that's, you know, this is an educational mechanism and a means of imbueing people with cultural competence.

But these institutions themselves, you know, derive from the psychological inner lives of people who are the constituent elements of that culture. You know, so it's a tautology, but not in punitive terms. It's kind of a feedback loop. Okay, and this is where the devotion to a state or a political order derives from. You know, and this is one of the, this is at base why secular regimes fail. Because they're not premised on anything that's truly human. You know, nobody's going to devote their lives. You know, nobody's going to invest.

this kind of higher moral value and some sort of abstract theory of you know distributive justice you know this should be obvious I think but I think many people don't fully understand the kind of

constituent elements of that perspective you know in order to develop a full conceptual picture. So there's, so to Hegel, there's an ontological and an existential significance to political order, you know, and, and, and the state. It's not merely a pragmatic derivation, you know, but again, that's not to say the state is some ending itself, you know, by virtue of its mere existence, you know, be it merely perfunctory,

or profound. It is true, and again, like any, any, any praxis, you know, derives from an ontological imperative, and thus the state can be said to constitute a kind of final end for the individual

in order to find truth within his own existence. You know, and the revelation of things like duty and the satisfaction and actualization or appearance, or at least

the suggestion of the divine in the external world. But again, this is a This is a reciprocal relationship, you know, essentially reciprocal, even tautological again. You know, it's only a final end to the extent which the political order derives from practical reason and higher rationality, which is essentially human and exclusively human, but also. So only can come to fruition in conditions where human minds can perceive the process that is underway.

You know, and those participate in the dialectical, you know, the phenomenon of higher dialectics. Okay. you know so there's not intrinsic moral content to the state other than what you know human and discreetly and cultural and conventional practices and morals you know in this kind of reciprocal cycle of development you know and as the individual goes beyond the level of his private discreetly personal thoughts and passions

and wishes you know this this process of the flourishing of higher reason through the political order and state craft that's what Hegel calls the subjective mind

I've heard people refer to it as the collective subconscious as if there's some sort of Jungian implication. That's not the way to think of it. It's far more kind of brass tax than categorically essential than that. But through the dialectical process and through the state and its development, the individual man becomes habituated to universalizing his wishes in terms of, you know, his political existence and his life as a historical, as a historically situated actor. You know, because again, the state being the exclusive sovereign agent with the power. actual potential to implement universally binding laws um you know that's that that's the only

that that is all that's the only thing that can be the subject matter of this process you know as a per praxis you know the state is a reality not not a project and this is key as well it's not some modality of social engineering you know it has to do it it it it it it derives from the way man lives his life and thinks his thoughts you know it's the means by which the individual man as an identitarian and communitarian terms and in historical terms and thus political terms this is the means by which he takes his place in the world, you know, and whereby, you know, he comes to identify what is reasonable within his, you know, moral and political and thus historical consciousness from what is pre-rational and merely, you know, derive from the passions. Now, the mere appearance, again, in realization of the divine, of a providential phenomenon, of the mind of God,

that's not to say that God's will is ultimately constituted or exhausted or fulfilled by the state or the existence of the state. again, this is a misunderstanding. And that be a form of high idolatry, and it's also a basic misunderstanding of Hegel's political ontology. You know, the state is not an ending itself. You know, it's a process of man's capacity to reason. and, you know, God's will in the affairs of a man and, you know, the realization of the inner psychological life

in terms of, you know, praxis and tangible and concrete and corporeal things. You know, and that's why it's essential to understand that Hegel was not some romantic nationalist or any kind of nationalist, you know, because the state is essentially, and state craft, you know, is essentially rational, you know, and to turn away from practical reason, you know, in favor of some romantic ambition or to pursue some utopian social engineering project in contrast, you know, as a lot of reformers and capital L liberals are prone to, or to turn away from the state and political order as it actually is on grounds of somehow

immoral or incorrect this this this is to deny reality you know um and it's it's it's town just saying that you you don't believe in gravity you know like wiley coyote does you know while he coyote claimed he or he's ignorant of gravity so he like he walks off a cliff and he's like walking on nothing and then wrote under our hands on like a book on gravity and then he learns of it then he falls like that that's that's not That's that's kind of a good metaphor for, you know, the way utopians tend to view political matters. You know, philosophy can't go beyond the reality of human affairs, you know, or beyond what is potential and potentially realizable within, you know, the domain of the political. And this actually is significant beyond this kind of narrow domain.

The function of philosophy itself, it's not to criticize the supposed moral shortcoming of sociological or political paradigms or to invent perfect societies and conceptual terms, its function is to identify and draw out the truth that informs reality, as it is. You know, and this is what Hegel viewed as his mandate. He was fundamentally concerned with demonstrating, systemically explicating, and proving that there was an underlying and essential rationality to the state and statecraft and praxis. In spite of apparent and characteristic irrationality, you know, born of passion and woo of reason, as is commonly alleged about the political, you know, the entirety of the process of

statecraft represents a tautological whole. which is greater than the sum of its constituent elements. And again, this whole tends towards the realization and fulfillment. Hegel used the term triumph of reason. You know, there's a metaphor of applied to the Hegelian paradigm of a Gothic cathedral, where there's this enormous complexity within its architecture that nevertheless is incredibly harmonious, you know, when viewed from a distance.

I think of it as something more like, you like imagine an obelisk, like in 2001, you know, like the monolith. if you're pressed up against an obelisk in the desert, you know, like you can't really make out its configuration. But at distance, you know, it becomes clear that there's like a perfect symmetry there

and that it's, it's, you know, a deliberately configured object. That's really the way to understand the historical process. And de Maestra echoed this in

moral and aesthetical terms which is really interesting but that the historical process you know the political theorist needs to and the informed laymen alike needs to approach this as as a systemic whole

you know you you can't take discrete instances you know of what appears to be you know a mass flight from reason

in the historical record and out of context you know hold this out as a proverbial case in chief that see there's not there's not there's not any sort of rational practice under way here you know it's all this

sort of scattershot an impassioned activity that isn't informed by you know precedent nor historical memory this is the wrong way to look at it and um the Higali rebuttal

too would be well obviously it's not true because like here we are you know I mean that that that um that that speaks for itself you know you don't um and that that's why a lot of people too misconstrued or misunderstand

Hegel is a progressive. Like that's not what he's saying. Like he's not saying that you know, the historical process is just like developmental cycle to a higher morality. What he's saying is that, you know, there's underlying structural features

that you know, can only be interpreted as derivative of reason. You know, and I think that's an arguable. If for another reason, then that, we would exist in a state of complete stasis. Or, man, simply, we would have gone extinct, you know, because people would have starved at death, and we were being able to, you know,

develop remedies based upon, you know, the knowledge derived from precedent and things. but um the uh this does create something of a paradox because it does suggest that history is the result of unconscious forces you know while at the same time

positing that conscious processes of the rational mind um created in the model of God you know is what corresponds to the historical process. You know, so the argument against this perspective is that the state is both a final result, allegedly, and a precondition.

But again, that's true. That's the way to understand it. You know, it is the result. result of individual action and thought and inner psychological experiences, the interplay of the passions does play a huge role in these outcomes, but the empirical fact of statecraft, as, you know, understood from on the conventional timeline, I guess, you know, five thousand BC, like a Tigris Euphrates civilization until the present, you know, the origin of political order and the cutting of reason or a basic rational core, even if you reject the providential move on as the key

variable you know I think those objections tend to evaporate it's what kind of time we go okay and this two this is one reason it's so misguided

when people interpret when people interpret or assign some some kind of moral weight to history or speak of war in peace as a process that needs to be remedied or arbitrarily declare that slaveholding societies were just evil.

You know, the state, like any dialectical, like the product of any dialectical process is born of conflict, obviously. And the state itself, again, the state itself, again, the state meaning the configuration of political order is literally the setting of the theater, if you will, a myriad potential conflicts. You know, and this is where Carl Schmidt partook of Hegel

in very explicit terms. You know, when Schmidt talks about the doctrine of exceptionalism, like the state of exception, which is essential to understand the Schmidian concept of sovereign authority you know he emphasizes above all else

that the invocation of the state of exception cannot be legitimately invoked to preserve an obsolescent constitutional regime you know categorically and axiomatically

you know statecraft and the praxis of political order is a process of creative destruction. You know, and this is, the state reflects

the mind and soul of man himself. Man doesn't do what he does to exist in isolation and remove himself from history. Man's existence as a historical

actor is basically like a fight to the death for recognition, for some kind of posterity, you know, because his immortal life is short and man essentially is a creator. You know, that's, again, what distinguishes man from beast of the field. Um, no man other than an absolute cretan or a, uh, a mental dwarf. views his life as existing only for himself in splendid isolation. You know, the only, really the only, in historical terms again, the only reason to create or act at all is for recognition

and to guarantee the enduring historical memory and posterity of his deeds, and actions. And extrapolated to a nakedly political context between friends and enemies, the degree, the wish for recognition

in the form of cultural posterity and triumph within the historical process while repudiating a competing actor you know

similarly situated within an opposing paradigm I mean that's the that's the essence of war and peace like that's the essence of conflict for which

you know the state is the stage you know the enemy is he who wishes for his own way of life to flourish and endure perennially while repudiating the similar wish, will, and impulse within his enemy,

within the heart and mind of his enemy. You know, and this is neither good nor bad. This is simply what he is. You know, and, I mean, such that there is a moral aspect to it, okay, to remove to remove that catalyst I mean, what would there be? Like a a culturalist society of sleeping people,

like figuratively and literally, like how would that be desirable? Like I say again and again, one of the reasons why contemporary liberals are not, they do not have a legitimate perspective. You know, they're basically saying that

like the perfect society is like a nursing home or a hospital or something. Or maybe like a prison where there's, you know, comparatively luxurious accommodations or good food or something. You know, I mean, that, like robbing the human life of all meaning, eradicating history, eradicating all value, because that's what makes things physically secure.

I mean, that's literally senile, you know. And I realize a lot of these people, people probably aren't capable of apprehending political life in any thing approaching a complete capacity. But even in limited capacities, I mean, that to strike any man or woman is totally absurd. You know, and I think that some of that is beginning to accrue. I think that's one of the reasons why this, uh, the kind of consensus on values or lack thereof that was so characteristic of you know the the brief kind of triumphalist era of the clinton 90s until you know 2001 you know i think that that's why the the vestigial aspects up at or something nobody takes seriously and you know i mean because like how could you take that seriously

but yeah sorry let me see where I'm at as you can tell I'm still not at 100% so forgive me if I seem kind of

I swear I'm not going to see an oil I'm just still feeling a bit out of it yeah let's yeah let's uh

well and it's also too here the this and this is important and this Hobbs um this is this is

there's a parallel in Habesian thought or two the the original conflict kind of the original

you know the original conflict paradigm that is prior to the state is the conflict between master and slave okay

and in Hegel's formulation this this kind of setting of the stage of the of the primordial stage with you know the master slave dichotomy in the Hegelian

formulation that that's the parallel of Hobbes's you know state of nature if you follow me and in both cases there's a tremendous mark or like imprint

rather on historical reality subsequent. Historical and political reality subsequent. You know, and axiomatically you know, that suggests not only that the state emerges from violence

because the first relationship among men is, you know, one of conflict. And it it establishes the motivating factors in pre-rational terms

for political action which are derivative of the passions you know the first being the first being vanity or the desire for recognition and posterity and power what we think of as clout and secondly

the fear of violent death you know um but there's a unique characteristic in the master's slave paradigm because

the it doesn't end with the victory of the master and his ability to corral his slave into um this paradigm of servitude you know

this is a dynamic process in Higalian terms. You know, and the master is far from idle. In fact, he's the opposite. The master is able to devote 100% of his energies and thought in his quest for recognition and posterity, you know, for prestige and glory. generally through war you know slaveholding society the first societies were

were based on war and slavery there's a slavery is complex and the reason why it's truly the universal sociological institution there's anthropological reasons for this

there's psychological ones I mean we could devote an endless series on discussing the various aspects of slavery, okay, and what its origins are in anthropological terms, historical ones,

biological ones, psychological ones, psychological ones. But in purely political terms, you know, warrior societies take slaves,

essentially so that, you know, the master cast can be free to pursue glory through warfare. Okay. But at the same time, that doesn't mean the slave is something like worthless life or that he should be disdain or that people should have contempt for him.

Like, not at all. Because he works, you know, albeit to satisfy the demands of the master and to produce or or harvest things, according to the master's needs, it's the slave who transforms nature and himself. You know, he becomes physically strong, he develops skills,

he removes objects from nature, and reconfigures them or processes them to make them util. You know, and his daily life, you know, he's working in the service of an abstract idea, you know devised by the master but also you know an immediate project to be realized so I just like he

the external world is basically only exists and like the praxis of the master only comes to fruition through literally the physical labor of the slave you know

and that's um that this is also like resonant in Christianity too and like a lot of people don't understand that either you know and the the admonition and in the pollen letters especially to like not this I mean you shouldn't disdain slaves anyway because you like a man's moral character is not determined by his station but this is a core component of that and people don't understand it it's not it's not some primordial or great antiquity version of, like, a noble savage myth or something. And it's not, it's not some moral claim about, you know, how the wretched classes or somehow, you know, superior to their haughty masters.

It's exactly what I just relayed, you know, and what Hegel explicated. You know, and the, but in turn, you know, the masters, When we talk about leisure in within this classical paradigm of masterhood and slavery, like we're not talking about a guy sitting around sipping boat drinks and wearing like Hawaiian shirts or having, you know, like pretty like sexy ladies like feeding grapes. I mean, yeah, there's like some of that. But generally, we're talking about, you know, the cultivation. of a heroic and aristocratic attitude, which is brought to full fruition

through creative destruction and warfare and high politics and statecraft. You know, so there's this, there's an essential, there's an essential function that both the master and the slave perform. you know, without either one, the cunning of reason would not have been possible, you know, and higher life, you know, of which the political is kind of most sanguinary and immediately significant. again. I mean, owing to the fact that its subject matter is, you know, literally life

and death, like, none of this would be possible. So you can't, you can't sit around and say, like, well, slavery is evil. That's like saying, like, plate tectonics is evil. Okay, I mean, so, history, okay, you find history is evil.

Because, I mean, I, you can't, you know, it's not something that serious people entertain. you know and I submit too like I

one of the reasons um you know and this is one of the things that it is actually pure it's one of the few things that Marxists are pure Hegelians

in terms of you know like you're one of the reasons I object to it so strenuously like you know I was talking about this in the pod the other day

with my my dear friend Anthony you know like like limousine liberals who love to sit around and morally pontificate about the supposed evils of class dynamics. They're not Marxists.

Marxists don't think that way. Like, Marxists are true Higalians in this sense. You know, and, um, you know, and plus too, like it's arbitrary. Like people have got up in St. Clair, you know, like in the jungle, I mean, that's like the subtext. You know, like his novel. Like, oh, agrarian slavery is the most evil thing ever. But, you know, working in some filthy danger.

factory restoration wages where like 20% of men die on the job like that's that's okay you know

it's um there's like an arbitrariness to this kind of feign moral outrage that additionally like impeaches any legitimacy but um yeah I'm gonna

we should stop here because I'm gonna take us in a bit of a different direction in the Hegel discussion but I hope this is a huge topic and frankly it's hard to distill down

into intelligible terms. I hope I'm doing an okay job of it. I'm not fishing for praise. But if I'm not, I want the subs to tell me that. I'm not, you know, that feedback is essential.

But yeah, I really appreciate you hosting me for this man. Of course. Of course, anytime. Tell everybody where they can find your stuff and what you got going on.

Yeah, there's a lot going on, actually. And again, forgive me this past week. Nothing really got done on to me being ill. Best place to find me right now is Substack.

You know, that's one of the few platforms that doesn't censor me and other people. That if you can find my podcast, it can do my long-form stuff, you know, that we got an active chat there. It's Real Thomas 777.7.7.com. I'm still soliciting help in building a new website, man. I'll shout that out again on my platforms, but I need help with that as I kind of reconfigure my content. I'm doing a stream here in about an hour on Rumble, and at long last I'm going to start doing regular streams there.

You can link to the Rumble through the substack. I'm on Telegram, I'm on Instagram, seek and you shall find. But yeah, for right now as I reconfigure my kind of, the way i do things um you know find me at substack and um i am i am making progress on my manuscript i'm running a i'm writing a book on um modern political theory and particularly the regime that was imposed after the second world war and that should be wrapped by the end of summer but um yeah that's where i'm at all right until part two on hegel thank you very much thomas yeah

Appreciate you.